SEOUL: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said the country is now implementing a nuclear force construction policy to increase the number of nuclear weapons “exponentially,” state media KCNA reported on Tuesday.
In a speech on North Korea’s founding anniversary on Monday, Kim said the country must more thoroughly prepare its “nuclear capability and its readiness to use it properly at any given time in ensuring the security rights of the state,” said KCNA.
A strong military presence is needed to face “the various threats posed by the United States and its followers,” he added.
Kim also said North Korea is facing a “grave threat” from what it sees as a US-led nuclear-based military bloc in the region.
South Korea’s deputy defense minister for policy, Cho Chang-rae, and his US and Japanese counterparts on Tuesday condemned Pyongyang’s recent diversification of nuclear delivery systems, tests and launches of multiple ballistic missiles.
Meeting in Seoul, the three reaffirmed a commitment to strengthen trilateral cooperation to ensure peace in the region, including by deterring North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats, according to a joint statement released by the US State Department.
They also agreed to hold a second trilateral military exercise known as Freedom Edge in the near term.
South Korea will also hold a defense ministerial meeting with the member states of the United Nations Command (UNC) on Tuesday.
The UNC is led by the commander of the US military stationed in South Korea.
Last month, Germany became the latest to join the UNC in South Korea that helps police the heavily fortified border with North Korea and has committed to defend the South in the event of a war.
North Korea has criticized the UNC as an “illegal war organization” and Germany’s entry into the US-led UN border monitoring force as raising tensions.
North Korea’s Kim Jong Un vows to exponentially boost nuclear arsenal
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North Korea’s Kim Jong Un vows to exponentially boost nuclear arsenal
- Kim Jong Un says North Korea is facing a ‘grave threat’ from what it sees as a US-led nuclear-based military bloc in the region
Senegal to suspend all extraditions to France
- A French appeals court in late November requested details from Dakar regarding Senegal’s request to extradite media magnate and government critic Madiambal Diagne
DAKAR: Senegal has “decided to suspend” all extraditions to France, Dakar’s justice minister said, accusing Paris of refusing to hand over two Senegalese citizens to the West African country.
The row comes after the French courts postponed a decision last month on whether to return a Senegalese press baron critical of the Senegalese government, and as Dakar seeks the extradition of a businessman under investigation for financial irregularities.
“We have two Senegalese nationals in France. France, up to now, has not returned them to Senegal, which has provided all the justifications and continues to request their extradition,” Justice Minister Yassine Fall told parliament, without specifying who the two people were.
As a result of France’s non-cooperation, Senegal will refuse to extradite 12 people wanted by France “until France responds favorably to what we have requested,” Fall said.
“If these people are guilty of crimes, we arrest them. We do not do as France does. We do not let them remain free,” the minister added.
A French appeals court in late November requested details from Dakar regarding Senegal’s request to extradite media magnate and government critic Madiambal Diagne, who fled to France in late September and is subject to a Senegalese arrest warrant for alleged financial irregularities.
Two journalists were arrested in Senegal in October after conducting separate interviews with Diagne, sparking an outcry among press groups and the political class, which called the detentions a severe attack on freedom of speech. Both were freed within the week.
Since toppling former President Macky Sall in 2024, considered one of France’s closest allies in West Africa, the Senegalese government has adopted a more critical stance toward Paris, without completely turning its back on the country’s former colonial ruler.
